Playing their first gig on New Year’s Eve 1982, The Bats became part of the vanguard of New Zealand bands to bring attention to the country’s underground music scene during that decade. Their manically strummed guitars, mid-fi aesthetics, and frenetic pop hooks came to epitomize the Dunedin Sound being championed by Flying Nun Records, the band’s label home.

Some 40 years later, The Bats are still going at it with the same lineup—singer/guitarist Robert Scott, bassist Paul Kean, guitarist Kaye Woodward, and drummer Malcom Grant—though perhaps with slightly less vigor than their younger selves. Released last week, Corner Coming Up is the band’s eleventh album and its fourth since reuniting with Flying Nun after some years apart. Produced by longtime Flying Nun associate Tex Houston, it bears the melodic hallmarks of The Bats’ past records, only now the frantic playing has been replaced by contemplation and a mellowed countenance every bit as fetching.

I caught up with Scott via phone to discuss the new record and how things have changed over the years.

It’s been five years since your last record, so it seems like your releases have become more sporadic.

Robert Scott: We recorded it nearly two years ago, but it’s taken a long time to finish. Doing the last of the overdubs and the mixing took quite a bit of time. Then it was supposed to be released earlier this year, but some of Flying Nun’s other releases got pushed back.

So were you working with Tex on the overdubs then as well?

RS: Yeah, I was doing my overdubs with Tex in Dunedin, and the rest of the band were in Christchurch, so the files were getting sent to them as there were new pieces. That just adds up to more delays, as opposed to the band all being together in the same room.

Has the band usually been in the same place in the past?

RS: For Foothills, we were sort of doing that as well because Paul recorded that in Christchurch. I had to come back home, so that took a while to finish for those same reasons. But the albums before, we were pretty much all in the same space, and that’s a lot easier.

Sometimes you have worked with producers, and other times you’ve worked on your own. What was the reasoning behind bringing Tex in?

RS: It just depends on what we feel like. For Foothills, we did work without an engineer or producer. It was okay, but it’s nice having someone to bounce ideas off of and take the load off a bit. And we’d worked with Tex in the past.

Right, you worked with him with The Clean, and I know you did some artwork for his speaker line.

RS: Yes, that’s right. I painted one of the speakers.

And he’s been very involved with Flying Nun over the years. So did it feel more like working with one of your own than maybe another producer?

RS: Yeah, I’d say that’s a fair comment. It’s really easy working with him, and we’re pretty happy with how it came out.

How much influence would you say he had on the record?

RS: A reasonable amount, actually, because he has always been keen to share his ideas about the sound of the song, which is obviously the role of the producer. So he did have some bearing on how we approached some of the songs and made the overdubs.

Talking about sound, there’s always been a lot made of “the Dunedin sound.” When you were starting out, did you feel like you were part of a scene that had a shared aesthetic?

RS: Early on, with The Clean, we didn’t realize what impact we were generating. But then, within a couple of years, we started to get feedback from overseas, from Europe and the States, with interest in the records and our stuff getting radio play. What was being produced here was resonating with people overseas and around the world.

But did you feel like the bands at the time were coming from the same place musically?

RS: Yes and no. A lot of bands shared similar taste in music: the Velvets and the Stooges. and psychedelic pop as well. So there was a core group of things that people drew on, but there was a wide variety as well. A lot of the people in the scene were avid record collectors who were devouring a lot of music, and that came through to different degrees depending on the band. We were starting from a similar standpoint, and then from there, the music evolved on its own in terms of how the bands were chasing their own sound and developing what they wanted to do.

You mentioned the Stooges and Iggy often talks about. how the sound of the motor factories had an influence on the way the Stooges sounded. So I was curious if there were any environmental components to New Zealand or Dunedin that may have influenced the way the bands sounded.

RS: No, not industrial. There’s industry here, but it’s not like Detroit. Here, there’s more nature and wide open spaces and not many people around. So in some ways that comes through in terms of a wide-eyed optimism or possibly an expansive sound.

You were explaining that there were a lot of overdubs to be done, but still five years is a good deal of time between records. Is that also reflective of a more relaxed approach to the band at this point?

RS: Yeah, I think so. We didn’t do so many albums in the ‘90s and 2000s, but we were a lot busier than we are now. It’s sort of like the more you do, the more momentum you generate, more gigs and more press. You almost feel more motivated or galvanized to get on to the next one quicker. Now, being a bit older, we scaled back our touring as people have to work and can’t get as much time off. And with me being down here and the others up there, that sort of slows us down to some degree.

Are you the type of person who is constantly writing songs even when there’s not a specific project in mind? Or is it more like sitting down to work when it’s time?

RS: I’m writing all the time. I mean, I’ve got enough written for the next five albums!

Does it take a specific event to inspire you to write a song?

RS: No. It’s more sitting down with a guitar or keyboard and coming up with a set of chords, a melody that stays with me. If I remember it a few days later, then I think, “Well, this is the genesis of what could be a good song,” and I develop it more, get the arrangement together, and then get some words. So usually with the best stuff, I’ve got it sitting on the back burner, and then it’s time to send those demos up to the band to start doing their thing and writing their parts.

So it usually starts musically then?

RS: Yeah, as opposed to a global event galvanizing me. There’s a lot to write about in the world at the moment, that’s for sure. There’s like a lot of bad stuff going on, but I don’t really channel that into the songwriting as such. Some people do, but that’s not me. It’s more about the song.

What was the spark for this album in particular? Was there a song that steered the direction it was going to go into?

RS: Not really. It was a group of songs that we’d been working on for a couple of years. There wasn’t a sense of cohesion, but I knew that once we attacked them and recorded them, they would come to form an album. But really, it was just a group of songs that I had written.

“Loline,” which was like the first single, seems like a bit of an outlier. There’s almost like this natural denouement with “Eyes Down” and then it comes in at the end.

RS: It does. It is a bit different from the other ones in terms of its driving energy, I suppose. It was always going to be one of the strongest songs on the album. The funny thing is, I didn’t want it to be the last song of the album. I wanted it at the front of the album, but the others felt strongly that’s where it had to be. To me, it’s kind of weird with that one ending it. But that’s the vagaries of tracklistings and being in a democracy.

To me, the rest of the record has sort of a moodier, maybe slightly languid sound. Do you see it that way?

RS: Yeah, for instance, the song “The Gown” is about having treatment for prostate cancer, which I had a couple of years ago, and being in a hospital gown. That colored the writing of the songs as well, because it was a scary life event. So that definitely is a big part of it for sure.

I would imagine so. You were talking about the democracy of the band. Do you attribute that to the longevity of the band and having the same lineup for 40 years?

RS: Yeah, I think so. We’ve developed an understanding of where each other is coming from and taking that into account in discussing things or making decisions about a song. We’re often on a similar wavelength anyway, and if something comes up that needs to be argued about, for want of a better word, then we work through that and resolve it. Some bands are a bit more fiery, but we’re pretty laidback. Some bands might have a bit of a bust-up about things, but we tend to sort out whatever needs sorting out.

If somebody didn’t want to be in The Bats anymore, would that be it then?

RS: Yeah, I think so.

We were talking about the sound of the band. Something like “Made Up in Blue” has a certain franticness to it that seems to have dissipated. Do you attribute that to the nervous energy of youth?

RS: Youth, and we were in London, so it was a very busy, frantic time. I think that comes through in that song. Now we’ve got long periods of doing other things, so when we can come back to the music, it’s not quite so urgent. It’s a bit more relaxed and reflective.

When you went off to London, was there a sense that you were going to “make it?” How has your viewpoint of things changed at this point?

RS: We’ve never gotten hung up about “making it” because we’ve seen lots of bands over the years burn themselves out. Paul had gone through that with Toy Love going to Australia, and The Clean had broken up for various reasons, partly because of pressure. So we were pretty relaxed about things. Things were going well at the time, and we felt like we were doing a lot of good work, recording and playing a lot of really good clubs throughout Europe and in the States. But we weren’t too hung up on making it. We were kind of measured in our approach.

And yet you took like a 10-year gap. Was that just feeling burnt out on things at that point?

RS: People having babies was a big part of it. And work commitments. We were doing stuff in that time period—we were playing live, and we’d done a little bit of recording—there just wasn’t an album.

Do you have any big plans as far as promoting this record? Are you coming to the States?

RS: We can’t come to the States for obvious reasons, which is a real shame. We’re doing New Zealand shows, and we’re probably going to Australia, possibly Europe as well, next year sometime. It’s just a wee bit harder these days, so we’re veering on the side of caution.

Does it feel good to be back releasing records with Flying Nun again?

RS: For sure, it’s always good to work with them. And they’ve moved on. They haven’t stagnated in terms of just doing the old stuff. They’ve got a lot of new stuff that’s good as well, which is really, really great. So it’s good to still be involved.

Did you feel like when you started that you would be doing this 40 years later?

RS: No, when you’re young and doing things, it’s all about the moment. As time goes on, you think about it a wee bit, but the future takes care of itself in some ways. Fate and chance play a big part, and all you can do is make the most of what you’re doing at the time, whether it’s writing a song, recording, or touring. Just doing that to the best of your ability. Lots of close friends have passed away. I don’t focus on it too much, but it makes you want to leave a lasting legacy. I like the idea that when we’re gone, our body of work will stand up well.